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While this question sounds like this one, bear with me and I'll explain why it's more of a revised version of this one instead (and to be honest I wasn't sure if I should've just edited it, but I think it'll need a complete rewrite and would be better off to just post a new one instead).

So, when people ask the question "is there something rather than nothing" (which some would claim to be "the root of philosophy") it seems like they assume that "nothing" is the 'default' status, while "something" would require an explanation - and an extensive question on this would be Does a negative claimant have a burden of proof?

Now, what I'm asking is, why - on the epistemological level - would we ask the question that way (putting "nothing" on the root of it) rather than, for example "why would there be nothing rather than something"? Why do we assume that nothing comes first and something has to "fill the void"? In other words (those in my original question) - isn't "nothing" and "something" equivalent on the epistemological level? (maybe Spinoza on God would be a good example, although I'm not exactly sure how much of this is my own interpretation and how much is what Spinoza actually meant because it's from memory - when Spinoza puts God and Nature as equals, the theological equivalent would mean that you can either take God as completely ontological, meaning "everything is God", or you can take God out of the equation - because you can say that Nature is exactly it. This would mean that "God" or "without-God" [similar to "something" and "nothing"] means exactly the same epistemology-wise - although definitely not the same theology-wise).

I hope this is clear enough. Tell me if you think this question should be closed and the original edited instead.

Edit:

I just want to emphasize the statement in my question by phrasing it a bit more radically - why do we even ask the "why there is something rather than nothing" question? Why isn't it obvious that this question is meaningless because there both "something" and "nothing" are equal? In maybe a bit odd example - isn't it the same as asking why is the result of some calculation is 1 instead of 0? And although it may have philosophical significant, is it really that big as it is usually being portrait to be?

Yechiam Weiss
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    I'm not sure but probably some philosophical theories suggest there is no nothing but an absolute chaos instead it. – rus9384 Mar 25 '18 at 17:53
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    @Yecchiam Weiss I consider it rather difficult to follow your argumentation, because you assume that the two sentences 1) "there is nothing" and 2) "there is something" are analogous statements. But in sentence 1) "nothing" does not have the meaning of a noun, Instead it is used as negation of the verb to be = to exist. Hence there is no common context for both sentences. Therefore one cannot compare the two sentences 1) and 2) with respect to this same context. – Jo Wehler Mar 25 '18 at 19:49
  • @JoWehler that's exactly the question. Is "not having the meaning of a noun" really doesn't have a meaning, or it's simply a negative meaning, like "-1" is to "1"? – Yechiam Weiss Mar 25 '18 at 19:58
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    We do not assume that nothing comes first, or comes at all, the second half of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is a turn of phrase for rhetorical emphasis. They are not equivalent, one is a general noun, the other verbal device for convenience of forming sentences and cobbling them together. This is of the same nature as the paradox of "nothing is", nominalized negation is treated on a par with what nouns are typically used for, "bewitchment by means of language", as Wittgenstein called it. Withholding assertion, unlike an assertion, does not require an explanation. – Conifold Mar 25 '18 at 21:39
  • Isn't this a question for psychology rather than philosophy? – Kenshin Mar 26 '18 at 03:49
  • @Conifold the point is - "withholding assertion, unlike an assertion, does not require an explanation": is it really "withholding" an assertion, or really asserting a negative assertion? Wouldn't saying "nothing" actually be an assertion on its own? And I'll refer to my weird example - "0" is still a number, it still means something in a very similar manner to "1", it's just a different number (or more precisely and more related, a number on a different level). And I wouldn't accept that "0" isn't a good equivalent to "nothing" because the better equivalent is really "" - because either:... – Yechiam Weiss Mar 26 '18 at 09:31
  • a) "" doesn't mean anything at all, so we can't even assume to talk about it, even as a contrast. b) when we say "" we usually mean "0" because this "nothingness" always comes with something like a "charge", a knowledge "charge" (here I start sounding weird because I don't have the terms to use) - we assert to this "nothingness", before even thinking about it, some "somethingness" that'll (1) allow us to talk about it and (2) be of significant meaning to us. I'm sorry if I'm being unclear here, I really don't know how to express this thought properly. – Yechiam Weiss Mar 26 '18 at 09:32
  • @Kenshin the line between psychology and philosophy is very thin, so you might be right, but I'd like to keep it here because I'm looking for the philosophical significant of this question rather than the psychological one. – Yechiam Weiss Mar 26 '18 at 09:32
  • If I understand you correctly I'd agree with your analysis (as you know). The prior question would be 'Is there Something rather than Nothing?' It seems so but a fundamental theory must look beyond how things seem. The absurdity of ex nihilo creation implies that the answer is no. . –  Mar 26 '18 at 10:02
  • I agree that there is a difference between withholding assertion and asserting the negative. But "why X?" does not presuppose some definitive anti-X, there is no symmetry in "why is the sky blue rather than non-blue?" other than in surface grammar. The analog of "nothing" is open-ended non-number, not 0, indeed something even more vacuous. And "why is there something rather than nothing?", in Heidegger's context especially, is an invitation to meditate even on the meaning of the question, not a contrast of opposite assertions. – Conifold Mar 26 '18 at 19:51
  • @Conifold I might be convinced here. But first I'll ask- so the meaning of the question is more as a thought-provoker than an actual question about reality? The assertion (because it is an assertion nonetheless, even though it isn't definitive) of "nothing" here is to be used as a thought-experiment, and to not actually question the reason of reality? (this is obviously an interpretation of your words and not exactly what you probably meant, but I'd like to see what's your response to this sort of instrumentalist view of the question.) – Yechiam Weiss Mar 26 '18 at 21:12
  • Occam? Zero is fewer than nonzero... We have a bias toward liking limits over ambiguity. –  Mar 26 '18 at 22:47
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    Heidegger would resist any analyzing of the question in this way, his model for philosophy is poetry. But leaving that aside "why something?" might as well be a question about our language/concepts as about reality itself, and "nothing" might as well be an empty turn of phrase rather than a thought experiment about an especially hollowed out something. "Questioning the reason for existence" need not fall into dichotomous scheme with pre-assertions on both sides, or even on one side. The answer may well be to realize that the question is meaningless, or that it should be asked differently, etc. – Conifold Mar 26 '18 at 23:40
  • @Conifold - The question is not meaningless but so weighed down with unnecessary assumptions it is unanswerable. What is the difference between Something and Nothing? What do we mean by these words? When we examine this question we find that we are dealing with concepts and ideas rather than empirical phenomena - which is a clue to the solution of the Something-Nothing problem. (Cf. Davies' 'Mind of God'). These questions are often considered meaningless but it is usually just that their hidden assumptions make them intractable and thus seemingly-meaningless. . . –  Mar 27 '18 at 16:41

3 Answers3

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Why should there be nothing ? If there is nothing, this needs no explanation unless something should be there. If there is a void, there just is a void : a void needs no sufficient reason for its existence unless something should be there.

By contrast, if there is something then we do need a sufficient reason for its being there. Did it self-create ? Was it brought into existence ? If so, by whom or what and why ? If there is something, this does need explanation.

Tentative but that's my answer to your cleverly reversed question. Nothing I say depends on any supposed temporal priority of nothing - that nothing 'comes first'. If I'm trading on anything it's economy of explanation. But this is a place where false moves are ruthlessly exposed, and quite right too : so if I'm wrong we're both sure to know and pretty soon.

Geoffrey Thomas
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  • Just saw the edit while writing the comment, and it reminded me that you did something here that I missed entirely- you put the light of the question on a different aspect of it, and that's good because we can see another point here: would a void really needn't a sufficient reason to its "existence" - here we really see that the root of the question is the most important question of ontology: What is existence really, and what does "voidness"/"lack of existence" mean? Can we really use it as a concept? Can we really talk about it? – Yechiam Weiss Mar 27 '18 at 21:08
  • And that's a really important aspect of the question, but it stands on the ontological aspect of it, while I'm looking more for the epistemological one (which you managed to pass through unnoticeably). – Yechiam Weiss Mar 27 '18 at 21:08
  • @YechiamWeiss, I don't feel at all confused by voidness/emptiness/nothingness on a simple level. It's clear to me that ontological **that** doesn't exist, by virtue of something (my hand, the computer, me thinking, etc.) existing. – elliot svensson Mar 27 '18 at 21:18
  • @elliotsvensson so, you say that doesn't exist. Can you talk about it? Can we have this conversation properly then? Can the question "why is there something rather than nothing" have any meaning? – Yechiam Weiss Mar 27 '18 at 21:20
  • Sure, just like I can talk about good presidents, unicorns, and square circles. A unicorn is usually depicted as a white horse with a single horn protruding from its head. Ontological nothingness is the state of nonbeing which is falsified by the existence of the universe, an object, or a person's mind. – elliot svensson Mar 27 '18 at 21:22
  • @YechiamWeiss - I'd agree it's the central question in ontology. The concept of a 'Void' is dangerous since usually we tend to imagine an extended empty space-time, which is not the Void.spoken of in esoteric circles. Democritus' Void is a non-reductive idea. –  Mar 28 '18 at 11:42
  • @elliotsvensson I don't understand how you compare ideas such as unicorns and square circles to nothingness. Even comparing unicorns to square circles is controversial, but to nothingness? Consider Peter's reply above this one. – Yechiam Weiss Mar 28 '18 at 11:46
  • These are all things that don't exist, but in different ways. A good president doesn't exist--- ha! A unicorn doesn't exist, but there's no reason it couldn't exist... we've just never actually seen one. A square circle is a contradiction, words which together don't add up to an idea. We can all agree on what ontological nothingness would be if it existed, we can propose specific definitions for "it", we can use it in logical equations just like we can put the infinity symbol in a math equation, all without it actually existing. – elliot svensson Mar 28 '18 at 13:42
  • @elliotsvensson can we though? Can you really reduce the concept of nothingness to "specific definitions" and "logical equations"? See [this answer](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/11218/30235) for example. I had a much better one but can't seem to find it now, sorry. Also, next time can you tag me? I had no idea you commented. – Yechiam Weiss Mar 29 '18 at 08:02
  • @YechiamWeiss, yes, we can. To deny this is mysticism, not philosophy. – elliot svensson Mar 29 '18 at 13:32
  • @elliotsvensson no, it isn't. It's a debated concept really, and to ignore its consequences is ignorance. For example of the debate see [the Wiki page of "nothing"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing?wprov=sfla1). – Yechiam Weiss Mar 29 '18 at 14:10
  • @YechiamWeiss for it to be a debated concept defeats the point that it is non-reductive. – elliot svensson Mar 29 '18 at 15:18
  • @YechiamWeiss, I think that when we practice philosophy, we are making a value judgment: it is better to explain something than not, and those who do explain things (or have good explanations) are doing better than those who don't. This is, I think, a fair reason that humans are better than animals. What can't be explained, ever, is something that will never be predictable: persons. Therefore, if I'm going to stop my thinking and let awe take over, I'll do it in regards to a person. To do this for ontological nothingness is somehow logical, but I think it's going in the wrong direction. – elliot svensson Mar 30 '18 at 14:07
  • @elliotsvensson I think we should really move this to chat, but the point is that you consider nothingness as ontological concept, while in reality *that's* what being debated (not only the concept itself, but it's ontologicalliness). – Yechiam Weiss Mar 30 '18 at 15:29
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If somebody claimed to be smart but didn't have an answer to Why is there something rather than nothing?, it would be easy to make them look foolish for not having an answer to this simple question.

Why can't we just reverse the challenge?

Something rather than nothing is a category broad enough to be verified by absolutely anything. If you were to ask, why is there nothing rather than something? ...you would be the one looking foolish, because your first example ("There is nothing") is so easily falsifiable.

Why isn't this symmetric?

Explanation is when we can see why something is or how it came to be, from a past state of not being.

To me, this suggests that explanations favor something over nothing. As long as we are in the business of explaining things, even a difficult something is better than a pure nothing.

After all, what would be the null hypothesis to nothing?

Some thoughts on nothing

It seems to me that we can confirm that asking "why?" is biased toward something by examining the Buddhist practice of using koans. When a koan is functioning, the demand for logic and the constantly asking of "why?" ceases, bringing a person's mind closer to nothing, non-self, emptiness.

elliot svensson
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  • I never said that "something need no explanation", I only said that the other way around is also true - "nothing needs an explanation as well". – Yechiam Weiss Mar 26 '18 at 22:57
  • I think there's sort of a bias between nothing and something. Something can't come from nothing, but I think it's even less logical to say that nothing can come from something--- i.e. that something could cease to exist so completely as to negate itself "in all dimensions". This bias is why explanations are directional toward something, away from nothing. – elliot svensson Mar 26 '18 at 22:59
  • I'm reminded of the "trivial solution" in parabolas from college physics. Of course the equations are satisfied if all the variables are set to zero, but it's not a very satisfying answer to the question. – elliot svensson Mar 26 '18 at 23:24
  • Energy can't be created or destroyed only transformed, is arguably a restatement of philosophical atomism, of eternal constituents - able to be something eternally, but never nothing. Though, we expect void will also turn out to be a kind of energy once general relativity is unified with the quantum world, which will probably throw a spanner in those works. Could spacetime and matter arise together, and cease together? – CriglCragl Mar 27 '18 at 01:48
  • That's the proposition of cosmological symmetry, i.e. that matter and anti-matter, energy and anti-energy, are all balanced such that given enough time, everything will coalesce together again and cease to exist. But even in that unlikely case, what's left will still be "something"--- physical laws, history, matter/antimatter pairs jumping in and out of existence... – elliot svensson Mar 27 '18 at 13:25
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Entropy. Where did it all come from? In just over 7000 times the current age of the universe, the last star will extinguish, ending the stelliferous era and dramatically decreasing the universes habitability, in one more step in an apparently endless decline. Statistically, based on current physics, we might expect infinitely more times of a decayed state, a 'heat-dead' universe, than an active stelliferous one.

The anthropic principle requires, that for us to be here now discussing this, there has to be a mechanism to start things off, and it had to be in such a 'fine tuned' way, in this timeline/universe, that sufficiently complicated states could occur for biological evolution and minds to occur, observers. Given the 22 constants that needed to be exactly at or 9+ decimal places close to their measured values for this to happen, it is speculated many universes may have happened with different laws, but there was no possibility for an observer to ask questions, so it is like they don't exist, are beyond a kind of mental event horizon. Of course, that would make the current something even less likely than the average nothing, even though it places us by necessity in this bit. The question becomes, why is there this kind of complex something, rather than simpler more chaotic and stabler states which from our perspective is equivalent to nothing.

isn't "nothing" and "something" equivalent on the epistemological level

In Taoism, the signifier 'nothing' is just one of the ten thousand things. Emptiness (slightly different) is seen as intrinsically full of potential, and fully containing The Way; whereas arising things inevitably limit that potential in some way.

In Buddhism the Dharmakaya is a kind of background of potential for liberation, on top of which infinite causal chains have been giving rise to new subjective beings for eternity. Everything is seen as contingent and lacking in self-nature, so I guess the potential for liberation and arising things are non-dual. Being and nothingness are one.

In Sanatam Dharma or Hinduism there is the great cycle of the breath of Brahman (the ultimate reality), in which shiva began the cosmic dance of creation.

Everything is a kind of nothing. Everything and nothing are sides of the same coin. And cyclical change between something and nothing. Some of the long standing answers. What answer we choose probably says more about our cognitive biases, than it does the universe, though.

CriglCragl
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  • The first part of the answer (talking about entropy) doesn't seem very related, as I'm questioning the question itself, not asking for an answer to it. The second part (the Buddhism part) is more relevant, but it has one crucial problem- you already use a definition of "something" and "nothing", taking that definition for granted, while I question those definitions as well. Although I like what Buddhism has to say on this subject. Maybe you could edit the answer to reflect this comment? – Yechiam Weiss Mar 27 '18 at 10:45
  • @Yechiam Weiss: The balance of probabilities is on nothing, and the something we have seems suspiciously complex, validating the question, why is there this rather than nothing or something simpler or more chaotic. Seems relevant to me. The question arises out of a causal scientific view, because metaphysical systems and cosmologies explain the nature of what is rather than explore the landscape of counterfactuals – CriglCragl Mar 27 '18 at 21:44